Marches of Wales and Lords Marchers.—Can any of your correspondents define briefly the Marches of Wales, what localities were comprehended within the Marches, the meaning of the word, as also the term Lords Marchers? Is there any work in which explanation sought can be found?
G.
[Consult Camden's Britannia, by Gibson, vol. i. p. 470., vol. ii. p. 199.; Warrington's History of Wales, vol. i. pp. 369-384.; and Penny Cyclopædia, art. Marches.]
Replies.
MORAVIAN HYMNS.
(Vol. iv., p. 502.)
I offer P. H. the best information I have. It is scanty, but as a few years ago there was much competition for Moravian hymn-books, probably some fortunate possessor of an editio princeps may be induced to tell us more about them.
Of the editions which I have seen, the later is always tamer than its predecessors. I have one entitled A Collection of Hymns, consisting chiefly of Translations from the German. Part 3. The Second Edition. London: printed for James Hutton, Bookseller in Fetter Lane, over against West Harding Street, MDCCXLIX. After the manner of German hymn-books, though in verse, it is printed as prose. I have never seen Part I. or II.; and though a book which had reached a second edition only a century ago cannot, under ordinary circumstances, be scarce, several booksellers and book-fanciers, who have seen mine, declare that they think it unique. It is probable that ridicule and misconstruction induced the heads of the congregation to make great alterations and omissions in fresh editions, and to recommend the destruction of the old, as a means of avoiding scandal. Very good reason they had for so doing, as the meaning of spiritual love is often so corporeally expressed as to make Tabitha's dream, in the New Bath Guide, fall far short of the intensity of the serious work. I cannot find the "chicken blessed," as cited by Anstey, but have no doubt that it is genuine, as well as those in the Oxford Magazine. At page 86. of my copy is a different version of that given by P. H. It is called the "Single Sister's Hymn." Tune: "How is my heart," &c.
"To you ye Jesu's Wounds!
We pay
A Thousand thankful tears this day,